House Progress

This is the latest update on our house. They should be pouring the cement Wednesday or Thursday.

Hidden Talents

Today was the gym competition at the kid's school. This means gymnastics and they have class, group and solo competitions. Apparantly Jackson signed up a while ago and then forgot about it. They called his name up today and he had nothing - no music, no routine - nothing. He just put in a cd someone else brought and made up his routine as he went. Somehow he then walked away with the bronze medal. A girl got the gold, then his friend Gabriel won silver and he won the bronze. Out of the entire year 6 - about 30 kids - and he wins bronze? Apparantly I need to get this kid signed up for gymnastics because we might have another Peter Vidmar on our hands. HAHA.

What's Your Motivation?

We were cleaning the house today because our landlord is selling the place and someone was coming to look at it. This was a family job but I figured I would give the children some motivation. We have just started paying the children for a few small chores now and then so I thought that might help today. I told Jared if he wanted his allowance then he needed to get cleaning. He went upstairs and while he was cleaning up the bathroom I heard him ask Jackson "what's an allowance?" I found it pretty funny he was willing to do his job in hopes of receiving an "allowance" when he didn't even know what that was. I should have hurried upstairs and told him it was a box of rocks - but with that boy that would probably be better than money.

So, topic of the day - do you give your kids an allowance? Are there chores involved? My sister in law's children all have jobs -chores - around the house. They are not given an allowance but if they need money for anything the chore chart is looked at and then the money for the activity is given. My brother in law gives an allowance every week. The children stand in line with their hands out waiting for the cash yet I have never seen them lift a finger. What do you do?

I'm Old

I have evidence that I am old. While some of you will deny the fact it is still true. For one, I had a birthday in March and it moved me up an age bracket. You know, when you fill out a survey and it asks you to fill in your age: 19-14, 25-34, then the next one. Yep I've moved up to the next one. Well, I've come to terms with the age bracket thing but then yesterday happened. Yesterday was Family Fun Day at the kid's school. I remember when I was a kid I could run around all day, climb on stuff, play games all that stuff kids do. In fact - all the things my kids did yesterday. They had a fantastic time on the bouncy castles, climbing walls, trampoline bungee and the tug of war. Oh right, the tug of war. This is the reason I am old. I was in bed last night and I just could not get comfortable. Trying to pinpoint the problem I realize my arms ache. What could I have done that would cause my arms to ache? Oh, tug of war! Do you know that 40 elementary school children can beat 25 moms at tug of war? I can also bet that none of those 40 kids had achy arms when they went to bed. I am old!

Oh - and I have to tell you about this climbing wall. I think I posted last summer a picture of Jordan on a climbing wall at Knotts Berry Farm. She scaled the wall like a pro. I think I need to print the picture out and put it in my wallet. We went over to the climbing wall with money in hand ready for her to climb. The man took one look at her and said she was too little and that she wouldn't be able to reach. There was a boy in her class doing his best to climb the wall and I know he is not much taller than her. I just had this thought that had she been a boy he would have let her try. I complained to a friend and she said "well obviously they don't know Jordan". Luckily I distracted her with the bungee trampoline again where she perfected the double flip. Take that Wall Climbing Man!

----Amazed - I'll work in your request or if you have a great way of blogging it let me know!

Jordanism

Yesterday Jordan asked me if Youdo dolls are real. Youdo? What is a youdo doll? You know if you have one of those dolls it will make you do whatever the person does to the doll.



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Amazed - I accept all visitors!!

Friends

When I was in highschool my best friends name was Stefani. Stef was a year younger than me and actually one of those girls I couldn't stand when I first met her. Perfect hair, perfect clothes, just perfect. We were great friends in highschool. We had all sorts of great adventures together. We went to Mexico in matching shirts we had made - perhaps the only time that I have been called Mrs. Pork and laughed about it. We puffy painted shirts - there were three of us. Lori had cows on hers, Stef had bears and I had pigs. Okay, we were dorks but that's neither here nor there. As we were walking through the market someone was trying to make a deal with us - I'm sure some item we thought we had to have. He called to each of us - come back Mrs. Cow, Mrs. Bear - MRS. PORK! My Senior year we went to San Francisco togther. Our highschool basketball team made state and we convinced our parents to let us go. The best part was we had a place to stay - Stef had an uncle who lived in Oakland and he would let us stay with him. Her Uncle is a priest so we stayed in the rectory. All the other priests must have had plans that weekend because we had the whole house to ourselves. When I went to college Stef drove with me in my little red datsun pick up. We sang Billy Joel and James Taylor at the top of our lungs driving on the freeway. When I got married Stef was my bridesmaid. When she got married, the 2nd time, I was one of her bridesmaids. When she had her first child, a little girl, I was having my 3rd, also a girl. We have always kept in touch. That is until now. I should clarify that I have kept in touch - she is not. I know that she has gotten divorced recently but that is all I know. I had another friend email her and she did write back to him - but still no response to me. We weren't daily friends, we rarely talked on the phone, but we kept in touch. I only have a few friends that I have had forever that I keep in touch with and I figured she would be one that would be there forever. Now I have to figure out why she isn't returning my emails. Do I send an email asking what is going on? Do I just ignore that she doesn't respond and continue sending updated on what's going on with us and asking what's new with her? Do I put the memories in a box with other friends who have come and gone?

I Am Alive!

I am here. I know I abandoned you for a month but I am here. After being in the states for 3 weeks it has practically taken me that long to get back in to the swing of things here.

Well, we did buy a house, sort of. Everytime I would talk to Jordan on the phone during our househunt she would ask if we bought a house. We would talk about the fact that one house didn't have a bedroom for her - would she mind sleeping in the garage? She wasn't excited about that. Then I called and told her we bought dirt. Her response? WE CAN NOT LIVE IN DIRT! I really need to read the Little House on the Prarie books to her - then she'll see that you actually CAN - but we didn't buy a dugout on the banks of Plum Creek. I explained to her we bought some dirt and they are going to build on it and what the house was going to look like - a single story home - I then KNEW it was time to move back to the states. Her response then was "oh you bought a bungalow!!!"

I can tell you that I don't want to buy another house for a long time. I am way too picky. One house we walked in to still had the original flooring, wallpaper, kitchens and bathrooms from when it was built in 1962. We passed. We also passed on every single house that had a west facing backyard. I want a usable backyard and having the sun beating down directly in your backyard in 110 heat isn't the way to go. We also crossed off several based on school district. After looking at a good 30 houses we stopped by a building site - just because we were driving by. We looked at the model homes, we drove around the neighborhood, we looked again. This was it! Talk about the total package, single story, big lot (we could have gone bigger but 1/4 is plenty for our needs), good schools, decent commute. Of coure once we returned to the UK we had a woman at church critisize our choice. She has 4 children and they have lived in a 2 up and 2 down since they got married. That means there are 2 rooms downstairs - a kitchen and living room and then 2 bedrooms upstairs. She thinks if they could do that for 20 years with 4 children that it is ridiculous that anyone would need 3000 sq feet of house. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one out there that wouldn't want to spend their life sleeping on a fold out sofa in the living room - but maybe not. I mean I know I COULD survive in a 2up 2down - but if I don't have to then I'm not going to!

Here is a picture of our floor plan. And a promise I will do better at the blogging!